Natsume OnoBesprekingen

Flat out one of the best manga that I've ever read, and made me a complete convert to Natsume Ono (okay okay, I'm late to the party I know - definitely reasons to convert before now, lol). This was just so visually stunning, with a compelling story that realistically addressed issues of loss, hope, despair, abuse, trauma, recovery, and that vague background feeling that perhaps there is no recovery for people who are pushed too far down the rabbit hole of life.

There was something very tender and beautiful about this manga, despite the fact that it was dealing with some very difficult themes. The atmosphere evoked in this book is immediate, and sustained throughout, and you get pulled into stories within stories. Though I'm a characteristic 'weeper' lol, I was moved to tears multiple times during this novel.

Would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a powerful, heartrending story, but you might want to tee up something a bit comforting or light-hearted afterwards, because this a narrative punch to the gut.

This is one of those stories that while powerful, will resonate with you depending on who you are and the mood you are in. Its a very bleak world of ignored children, abuse, and absolute disfunctionality.

We have Ian, a product of incest, unloved, mostly hated, by his Mom, ignored and discarded by his Dad. His sister is the only one who wants him, but she ended up in prison trying to get the money to start new lives. And that is only the beginning. His sister rescues him from London from their abusive mother after getting of prison, and than sends him back to Australia, where his Dad lives. As he grows older, he searches for his sister, following her to America, always homeless, until a reporter acquaintance allows him to crash at his New York apartment.

This is bleak. Everyone has their own interests, using Ian for their own purposes, even the reporter, who while up front about his interest, is weirdly fascinated by Ian and his hard life story.

The illustration style matches the tone of the story, bleak, muted, very angular line work. I am not going to say I liked this story, but I am glad that I read it.½

Interesting manga. While the plot had some interesting turns, I wasn't too impressed with the main character's lack of agency.

Oof. This was a twisted maze of pain and life. Distinct art style that fits the disjointed feeling of the story. I really liked it!

Still really love the sketchy art. Story is interesting. Will keep reading!

I'm hooked. I absolutely love the art, very gritty and ethereal. The story is meandering in a dream-like way that builds slowly and allows you to sink into the scratchy linework.

Didn't like the diminutive samurai, and didn't much care for the criminal organization either.

Bought alongside the Borders closing, the first was "eh" and the second was "meh".

This seems like a weird blend of European and Japanese comic book styles in the storytelling, with allusions to lots of political intrigue but very little concrete actions. There are tons of smoke breaks, sampling of desserts and standing around moodily.

I was also put off by the throwback art (like '60s/'70s manga maybe) with all its androgynous characters. I enjoyed the art in the creator's sedate, slice-of-life [b:Ristorante Paradiso|6759122|Ristorante Paradiso|Natsume Ono|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347740952s/6759122.jpg|6955865], but it seems to drag down this ostensible thriller.

And really, setting this sci-fi/alternate reality story on an island shaped like an extinct (made up?) bird of peace which shares a name with the title was just too farfetched. More corn than substance.

I'm not sure I've seen a creator less interested in her plot. The political intrigue just seems to get in the way of the things in which she's really interested: drawing sweets, cigarettes, uniforms and other clothing fashions. I wish she had found a better concept on which to hang her passions. As it stands, I'm not going to continue with this series.

I’m not sure how to summarize this story, since so much of it counts as spoilers. I suppose I’ll start at the beginning. A young woman named Irene wants to run away with her boyfriend but is afraid that her dad will find them and literally kill her boyfriend. She then comes up with an idea that immediately qualifies her as a horrible person: pick up a random homeless guy, convince her dad’s goons that he’s her boyfriend, and run off with her boyfriend while the goons beat the homeless guy half to death. It seems like a great (horrible) plan, until she learns that her random homeless guy, Ian, is actually same same guy who convinced a family member of hers not to run off three years ago.

Unfortunately, a misunderstanding results in Ian lying on the ground, dying from a gut wound. Ian’s friend, Jim, tells Irene that he plans to turn Ian’s life into a book that will be coming out in about a year. The rest of the manga is Ian’s life up to this point: growing up with an alcoholic mother and cold and dismissive father, trying to keep his promise to his sister so that he can see her again, and then walking across the US searching for his sister after she disappears.

I read Ono’s Ristorante Paradiso several years ago. I wasn’t a huge fan of it the first time around, but it grew on me after a reread. I’ve always wanted to try another one of her works, and this one-shot seemed like a good place to start. I vaguely remembered it getting some buzz when it first came out.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be almost unrelentingly depressing. Ian was written as being very innocent and pure, no matter what sorts of horrible things happened to him. All he wanted was to be with the one person he loved and who loved him back, his sister. When this turned out to be impossible, he sought out other people who’d been good and kind to him...and the universe stomped on him yet again until finally even he couldn’t take it anymore. The horribleness of it all bled into his friend Jim, if the rumors about his fate after the publication of his book were true.

There’s a massive amount of child abuse in this story: neglect, emotional abuse, child prostitution, and incest. It sometimes came up in such an offhand manner that I found myself wondering if the things I had thought just happened really had. Ian kept taking absolutely horrific things in stride.

I can’t even say this ended on a bittersweet note. Yes, it stopped at a slightly happier time in Ian’s life, but readers had already been told that that was all going to fall apart in the next 3-5 years. I wanted a do-over, with Jim telling Ian “that stuff that happened to you wasn’t okay, and I know it can’t be undone, but we can try to make some good memories from here on out.” Instead, I feel like the mom and her “you should never have been born” speech won out. And wow, her words still make me angry. She spent years heaping punishment on people she should have been trying to help and protect.

In the end, this manga just pissed me off and left a bad taste in my mouth. Not Simple bent over backwards to hurt its characters - the bit with Ian's sister's boyfriend was both cruel and difficult to believe. I also wasn't a fan of this on an artistic level. Although I know some people love Ono's unusual style, it doesn't work for me. I’m at least glad that I got this via the library and didn’t pay for it.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

I was unprepared for the sheer tragedy of this book. It's about the life of a young man which through no fault of his own is wrought with tragic circumstances. I found it difficult to read in place - which I never know if that improves my rating for a book or not - and I found it lacking any real resolution. The most tragic part of the whole thing, I believe, is that he doesn't grasp the tragedy of his own life. He is not as horrified as others about the things that have happened to him. It takes a long time for the circumstances of his life to break him. This is amazing and admirable but also a bit unsettling and heartbreaking. His life does manage to touch some of the people he comes in contact with, his spirit changing them and influencing him, but what he gets in return seems lacking. But I don't think he recognizes this. He just doesn't feel sorry for himself.

The characters were really interesting and the story was good but I feel like the book lacked some depth that might be gleaned from a more traditional mode of storytelling. The art was well done and his expressive face went a long way toward making me sense his personality but I still found myself wanting to know more about the characters and their history and their motivations. At times it felt like a bit of a synopsis and I found myself longing for more.

Despite that definitely worth a read and definitely a character worth knowing.

Awwww. Soo cute! I was really cheering for Olga's daughter (I can't remember her name for some reason). It was actually really believable. I wonder if the author has spent time in Rome. I've only had one close Italian friend, and he was bi but the cultural cues felt really spot on. Also the art style is delightful. The plot was uncomplicated but then, who cares because it was all about the characters and the guys were incredibly cute. Have you read Gent? I'm thinking i want to, but it might be a let down comparatively.

[I'm never going to be done transferring old reviews. Anyway, this is one of those where I could appreciate why people raved about it, although it didn't quite work for me. It's aimed at an older audience than most of the manga translated into English (if you exclude the hentai and BL/yaoi stuff).]

I got this manga via ILL after reading a review about it on Unshelved. Plus, I really liked the cover art. It would have been awesome if the same look could have been used throughout the entire volume.

I wasn't really sure, at first, what to write about this manga. Looking for inspiration, I reread the whole thing, and I found I actually enjoyed it more the second time around. This is not my usual manga fare, and, although it hasn't made it onto my "to buy" list, it was a refreshing change.

When I first got this manga, I was a little disappointed. Like I said, part of what prompted me to request this was my enjoyment of the cover art. The artwork inside the volume features thinner linework, and my first thought was that it was kind of ugly. The artwork didn't make Claudio look as handsome as Nicoletta said he was, and none of the three women featured most prominently in the volume (Nicoletta, Olga, and Gabriella) can necessarily be identified as female right away when they make their appearances in the volume.

What can I say, I cut my manga teeth on clean lines and shojo sparklies. Ono's artwork eventually grew on me, and, like the story itself, I liked it more the second time I read the volume. It's definitely a recognizable style, and I quickly figured out I'd seen examples of Ono's work before, even if I had never read anything by her before. Ono is also the author/artist for House of Five Leaves. I'll have to try that out sometime, too - I'm impressed with the flexibility it must take to create both a work about an Italian restaurant and a work about a masterless samurai.

Well, back to this work, Ristorante Paradiso. The first time I read it, I was focused more on the general story. As a romance, it didn't particularly grab me. Nicoletta showed very little concern for Claudio's feelings when she decided to test her own out, and I was glad when her mother came and interrupted Nicoletta in the process of getting ready to jump Claudio. Claudio and Nicoletta's relationship was at its best during the scene where Nicoletta told Claudio the situation with her mother. Even then, I could just as easily have believed a friendship would grow from that as a romance.

What I did really like in that first reading was the relationship between Nicoletta and her mother. I caught some of the little things, like Olga's attempts to establish and deepen a relationship with her daughter by buying her gifts, and they made me smile, even as I wondered whether any of that could ever be enough to make up for what Olga had done.

That, for me, was one of the failings of the manga. As nice as it was to read something in which everyone actually sat down and talked about their problems for once, it felt like some problems, especially the 15-year long secret that was Nicoletta, got resolved too quickly and easily. It was easier to believe in the angry Nicoletta who came to Rome only because her grandparents asked her to and who was determined to tell Olga's big secret to Lorenzo, than it was to believe in the Nicoletta who just...let it all go, smiled, and forgave her mother. In a situation like Nicoletta's, I kind of think a bit of immaturity is justified. As nice as it was for her, getting to know her mother and even coming to understand her a bit, that didn't change the fact that she had to be raised by her grandparents because her mother decided her career and the man she'd fallen in love with were both more important than her own daughter.

I also didn't quite find it believable that anyone who knew Lorenzo would really think he'd reject Olga just for being a divorcee with a young daughter. The impression I had of Lorenzo was of a laid-back man who preferred it when the people he cared for were happy. Granted, it's possible he might have been a bit more prone to fiery emotions when he was younger, but the one flashback featuring him as a younger man indicated that that probably wasn't the case. I loved that flashback. Just a few sentences, and I could really picture big, gentle Lorenzo befriending his eccentric, taciturn older brother over a period of time. If I have the chronology right, only a few years later, Lorenzo met Olga. I thought the reason given for why Lorenzo said he wouldn't want to marry a divorcee with a child was a bit of a stretch, but I suppose I can believe that a woman in love might let fear of losing that love prompt her to do selfish things.

My first reading had me cheering when I reached the (near) end of the volume and found out how things worked out for Nicoletta and Olga. I loved that Ono included a few pages showing Nicoletta, Olga, Lorenzo, and the restaurant staff at some point after the events of the main story - it was like getting to see how good friends were doing.

My second reading allowed me to see all kinds of little details I'd probably noticed in my first reading but hadn't really paid as much attention to. I noticed Olga's attempts to protect Nicoletta, when Nicoletta was still not completely aware of the issues between Gabriella and Claudio. I noticed how Gigi hovered around Nicoletta in several scenes - during my first reading, I had no way of knowing that there might be reasons beyond "Gigi's a bit strange" for him to be doing any of that. I certainly had a better handle of all the restaurant staff, who they were, and their various personality traits. Although I had noticed during my first reading that the inside flap of the cover included a list of all the restaurant staff and a bit of info about each of them, I didn't have any of that information really internalized until my second reading.

One of the things that struck me when I was rereading the volume was how much more human and fragile some of the characters seemed. Claudio, in particular. From what little readers are shown of his ex-wife, it seems she's a very busy, career-minded woman. I could see why things hadn't worked out between her and Claudio. Claudio, I think, is geared to do better in a slower, more gently-paced world. He seems at his best when he's relaxed and chatting with Nicoletta.

Then there was Olga, who I think only had Gabriella as a confidante. When she was worried about Nicoletta, the only person she could talk to was Gabriella, even when Gabriella was part of the reason why Olga was worried. As far as Olga knew, Lorenzo and the restaurant staff didn't know Nicoletta was her daughter, so she really had no one else to turn to. In my first reading of the manga, I could imagine Olga shopping for gifts as a way to reconnect with her daughter. In my second reading, I could imagine that same shopping doubling as a way for her to burn off nervous energy built up from being unable to confide her biggest secret to most of the people in her life.

True, Nicoletta had been Olga's secret for 15 years before Nicoletta came to Rome, but it wasn't until Nicoletta arrived and started working at the restaurant that she became a secret Olga had to actively keep. The moment when Olga is looking at the birthday cake Nicoletta baked for her, just before she decides what she's finally going to do about Nicoletta, actually made my throat close up and brought tears to my eyes. This didn't happen during my first reading of the volume - apparently it took a second reading for the emotion of this moment to build up inside me to that point.

My stronger emotional reactions during my second reading didn't stop there - the scenes with Nicoletta and Olga in the little "Holiday Lunch" after story had more of a punch for me, too. It's the first time in the entire volume that you get to see Olga and Nicoletta doing an activity together, bickering about it like the mother and daughter they are, and being able to be open about it. I think what got to me there was the single panel, during their argument, showing Lorenzo smiling and reading a newspaper. It's just an ordinary thing, but it's a scene that couldn't have happened just a few pages earlier.

Even after my second reading, I didn't finish this manga and find myself wishing I could own it, the way I felt after finishing the four volumes of Antique Bakery. However, I do want to read Gente: The People of Ristorante Paradiso - I ended up liking the characters in this story so much that the idea of getting to find out more about them in other volumes makes me really happy.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Qu'est-ce que c'est que ce truc >_

Tesoro is a collection of Natsume Ono's early work featuring fourteen slice of life short stories and various other illustrations. The stories have a certain charisma as they focus on relationships and flit between Japan, Italy, and the United States (or perhaps Australia). The stories or often vignettes demonstrate the possibilities of using Manga as a short from and as a whole the collection is very enjoyable. Some selections read as pilot strips or spin-offs, ideas which never developed into longer works. Despite this Ono is able to create interesting characters in a few quick panels leaving the reader wishing there was more. This manga will appeal to fans of Natsume Ono seeking to complete a collection of her work while casual readers interested in Manga targeted to older readers may find interest as well. The artwork throughout is charming, often seemingly less refined or possessing a sketch quality in comparison to other manga. The lines do evoke emotive characters and the drawing style can be appreciated for its simplicity capturing complexity. Each story captures a sense of whimsy with a touch of humor and provides a nice, restful break from a stressful day.

Consisting of six short stories, Natsume Ono's Danza is a slice of life manga exploring relationships. A son and his father, the partnership between police, two estranged brothers after an earthquake, the stories throughout switch between Japan, Italy, and the United States. Two stories that stand out are "Diorama" where a Japanese father-in-law tries to relate to his American son-in-law and "Memories of the Lake" where a family relation travels back in time in order to build a memory between his dying father and emotionally distant grandfather. With the latter Ono creates a sense of longing which trails throughout the stories among a mix of humor and sweetness. Natsume Ono's art is quite distinctive. It can look rough in comparison with other manga, with some of her lines having a sketch quality. However, as in all her work, Ono's art has a warmth and charm that lends depth rather than distraction in building a story. Danza demonstrates the possibilities of the comic medium in creating short stories with emotional resonance, and while the stories passed quickly, each represented a small, bright spot in my day.

LIDO!

My introduction to Natsume Ono and her work was through the 2010 anime adaptation of her series House of Five Leaves. Since then, I have been devouring her other works available in English, so far all a part of Viz Media's Signature line, but House of Five Leaves remains my favorite. Ono completed House of Five Leaves in eight volumes which were initially published in Japan between 2006 and 2010. It was also in 2010 that Viz Media began releasing the English translation of the series. Currently, the first four volumes are available; the fifth volume is scheduled to be published in December 2011. Although I haven't been reviewing the individual volumes as they have been released, I have been reading them, and rereading them, as soon as I have a copy available. But because Ono was the focus of November 2011's Manga Moveable Feast, I decided to be a little more vocal in my love for House of Five Leaves.

Akitsu Masanosuke is a highly skilled swordsman although most people wouldn't expect it to look at him. Often they are surprised to discover that he's even a samurai at all. He's extremely shy, embarrasses easily, and is not even close to being intimidating. Masa's unfortunate personality makes it difficult for him to keep a job. His lord let him go as a retainer and no one wants to hire a timid bodyguard, and so Masa wanders Edo as a hungry rōnin looking for work. At least until he meets Yaichi, who is looking for a samurai in name only. Yaichi, perfectly capable of defending himself, simply needs a bodyguard for show. Preferably one that is easily controlled. Masa is glad to have the work, not realizing at first that Yaichi happens to be the leader of a kidnapping group known as Five Leaves. Despite his misgivings, Masa slowly finds himself drawn into their circle.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Ono's manga is her art. I have never mistaken her illustrations for anyone else's, nor have I ever taken another artist's work to be hers. Admittedly, Ono's style is not one that everyone will appreciate. I wouldn't describe it as pretty, but the loose, deliberate lines have a certain attractive elegance to them. I have become quite fond of Ono's artwork. The style seems to be particularly well suited to the story of House of Five Leaves, especially in the portrayal of the characters and their personalities. The droopy-eyed melancholy fits Masa's timidity perfectly while at the same time the artwork also easily embodies Yaichi's lazy, slightly unsettling intensity. My only real complaint about the art in the first volume of House of Five Leaves is that it is difficult to discern what is happening in the few action-oriented sequences.

House of Five Leaves is not a quickly paced manga by any means. It's strength lies in its characters and their interactions, and especially in the relationships developed between Masa and the members of Five Leaves. Probably most important is Masa and Yaichi's strange sort of friendship. Yaichi is fascinated and intrigued by Masa and his unusualness. In return, Masa admires Yaichi's confidence and is curious about him. Yaichi is a charismatic, enigmatic, and intensely private man. Not even the members of Five Leaves know much about him. At this point in House of Five Leaves, not much is known about any of the characters yet, but Yaichi is the most guarded. The groundwork for the story has been established in this first volume and the major players have been introduced. Masa still isn't quite sure what he's gotten himself mixed up in or who these people are, but that will all be revealed as the series progresses.

Experiments in Manga½

In this volume, the reader gets more insight into Matsu and Masa's pasts, and Yaichi's past begins to come back to haunt him.

A surprisingly sweet story of love and the entwined pasts of the people of Ristorante Paradiso.